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Cape Point

Location
This is southern most point from Cape Town and part of larger, Cape point national reserve.

You need to take ticket for entering the park. Ticketing counter is around half hour before you reach Cape point and located here.

We head first to parking lot of cape point parking lot. From there, the view point, which has two different light houses is a short walk. Usually there is a funicular which takes you to around 80% of the climb, however while we visited, it was closed for repairs. The climb as such is not a difficult one.

We reached around 8.00 AM there and found the place to be empty, by the time we finished seeing around and was on our way back, it had got crowded.




Start of the climb




View enroute



Final few hundred meters is steps







We reach the light house, this is called the 'Old Lighthouse'. History is that, after construction of this lighthouse, it was noticed that it was not serving its purpose since it was covered in fog most of the time.

It was somewhat surprising to note that both London and Delhi is equidistant from Cape Town, while New York is only 3000 odd KMs further.



Later a new light house was constructed further down the hill towards the sea so that its better visible from the sea. This is a short walk from this light house.

Location of new light house


The walk is pretty easy



New light house can be seen further ahead. This is the farthest one can go, the final section is a ladder based approach which is not accessible for public.






There are lot of World War II bunkers in this area.



It takes us around 2 hours to complete the same and reach back to the parking lot.

From here, we head towards Cape of Good hope which is just a short distance away.

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Cape of good hope

Location

This is where the famous signboard is located.



Apart form the signboard, there is a short hike location next to the hill. We try to take it since we have ample time available.




View from top of the hill is beautiful. But its starting to get windy and there was forecast for rains in the evening, hence we start back soon.

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Boulders beach

Location

This is the place to see African penguins. One thing to be careful while visiting here is, the parking location mentioned above is of south side ticket counter, this is called as the beach side entrance.

Slightly north of here - may be some 400 meters is another ticket counter, which is the official entrance to see penguins.

However, penguins can be found next to this 400 meter walkway from one ticket counter to another, though separated by fence, its possible to spot them from close.




Once you get in through the north side gate, you will find yourself on top of a lookout area where you can see penguins all around the platform.




If you have seen videos where people are seen walking next to penguins on the beach, thats from the earlier mentioned south side beach entrance. One has to get in through that ticket counter, walk through the rocky beach and reach the beach named as Middle beach in Google map.

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Lions head peak hiking trail

Location

This is one of the must do item if you are in Cape Town and is an outdoorsy type.

As mentioned earlier, the hike start location is near to Signal hill, also hiking is the only option if you want to visit top of Lions head since there is no road access.

The hike is not a tough one, for about 60 % of the path, its just regular dirt track, which is easy. Past that, there is a section which involves a ladder climb ( or an alternative longer rocky section), more on that below.

The final section has back to back boulder climb, which is not suitable if you have any health issues or with kids.

Start of hike and parking lot



And we start




We can see table mountain at distance




And peak of lions head




Views enroute, the road which you can see in the pic goes further south and reaches Chapman's peak route.





Slowly the dirt track starts turning rocky




And views become even more beautiful



We soon reach a section which is narrow, though in wide angle it looks narrower than it is. It was wide enough to let two people pass, however, since the supporting chains were only present on one side, people were mostly crossing one after another.



Past this, you reach a section where the route splits in to two only to join couple of hundred meters ahead. We took one route for going up and one for climbing down.

If you take the right arm, it goes through two ladders. That way, this is a steep climb, however felt it was much easier of the two options. Prior to the trip, had watched lot many videos which had mentioned this option as the dangerous one, that was since there was only one ladder and the remaining section was through staples on the rock wall. However, with a new ladder replacing the staples, it much easier now.


The diversion as seen from top. Notice the person with red clothing. That is the location where the path splits in to two. You can see people climbing over the ladder in the bottom side of the picture.




The second arm, the left one skips any ladder, however its a climb over boulders and it will take a longer route.

Longer route - the one without ladder -






Past this, both the routes joins and then its climb all way till top over boulders


* Pics are taken while climbing down or while pointed downwards, hence it may be confusing.







Since it was a weekend, there was considerable crowd too





Soon I reach the peak




One gets a panoramic view of ocean and Cape Town from here




It takes around 3 hours for up and down trip with multiple stops enroute.

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Old Biscuit Mill

Location

This is a famous weekend market, they have both apparel and food counters there. We visited there when it was raining, hence the place had a deserted look.

However, would rate it much lower than Oranjezicht City Farm Market mentioned earlier. Overall felt, Biscuit mill can be avoided if you are short on time.

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Chapmans Peak drive

Location

Driving here while at Cape Town was something which I was looking forward to. However, couple of weeks prior to our trip there was heavy rains in Cape Town and part of the Chapmans peak had landslide. This had caused the road to be closed. Random rains while we were in Cape Town was delaying repair work too.

Hence one morning we decided to drive till the start of the road from South side, near to where we were staying. Park the car near the closure and walk on the road till the location where the work is happening.

So we reached the barricade, checked with the security over there, who mentioned its okay to walk on the closed road. There were people cycling and jogging also around there.

Sky was clear and it gave a great view of the road and beach











After spending some time, we walked back, checked with the security on the progress and a tentative schedule for road opening. He mentioned it will be done mostly by same afternoon.
Though it didn't get opened on the same afternoon, it did by next afternoon, so we decide to have a sun set drive through the peak.



One can notice the road hugging the rock face




Our drive there



Rock cut section

Excuse glare from windshield.






Fun fact, there is a travelogue on TBHP about when Mahindra invited TBHP and media groups for a drive around Cape Town, Chapmans peak including.

Link (Mahindra Futurescape Experience Drive | To Cape Town, South Africa in the XUV7OO and Scorpio-N)

Also, Chapmans peak became famous after a crash which involving a S Class in 1988. Do check out the this link about the survivor and how Mercedes projected this as an example on how safe their cars are.

Link

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Cape Town to Johannesburg to Kruger

We took a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg

Cape Town Airport was fairly empty since this was an early morning flight.




Our booking was in Airlink airways, recently Qatar airways has taken up stake in this airline. However, for me, the logo reminds Kingfisher airline






Crop circles




Johannesburg city can be seen at a distance, its a huge city. With a population of 50 lakh +, its only marginally more populous than Cape Town (~46 lakh). However, Johannesburg does feel more crowded and spread across larger area.





Soon after reaching here, we take our rental car and head over to Kruger.

Roads in South Africa is much better than average Indian city and highway roads. Speed limit on highways is 120kmph.



There are highway rest stops every 50kms or so, we stopped at one during our onward and another on our return. They had clean restrooms, fuel bunks and good restaurants.




Roads have toll, for us it got deducted from the toll tag that the car was having. Later, the same was adjusted against our car rental. The tag worked in a active system, its not passive RFID like Fastag's in India.
Each time the tag was read by a tool booth reader, there was a beep sounded by the tag.

There is separate lanes for tag vehicles, though all other lanes accept tag too.




Road works are properly marked with diversion details




Part of the distance is dual carriageway roads, while the other is single carriage way.





It took us around 4.5 hours from J'Berg airport to reach Malelane Gate


One need to show the booking details, passport and fill a form mentioning vehicle details here.

One will get a slip which mentions the entry / exit and stay details. This is required for validation at the reception of your stay location and also you are required to show it while you are exiting the park once your stay is over.

We also get guidelines document too



Once we cross this gate, rest of the stay duration, we are technically inside the Kruger area. Kruger has multiple rest camps, though there is lot of debate on which of them is good and bad, I feel a lot depends on the duration of your stay.

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Berg En Dal Rest Camp

Location

We had booked at Ber En Dal rest camp, our stay here was for 4 nights.

One thing to note is that you need to get in to Kruger area before 6.00 PM and also to the camp gate by 6.00 PM. There is slight delay in closure time during summer time, however overall, its better to target crossing main gate (in our case Malelane Gate) with sufficient time. Berg En Dal and few other southern camps are relatively closer to the park entrance gates, hence for Berg En Dal we took only 20 mins from Malelane.


We had decided to book any of the southern rest camps when we were searching for the same. Of this, we were checking in the order -

1. Lower Sabie Rest camp
2. Berg En Dal Rest camp
3. Skukuza Rest camp

Of this, we were unable to find rooms at Lower Sabie even though we were checking around 7 months prior to the travel date.

The reason we ranked Lower Sabie on top was since it was south, around Cheetah territory and also since the camp was a medium size one, which means it had food and grocery options, but not that crowded like Skukuza.

Berg En Dal since it was near to the main road access, but at the same time off the main track, hence bit isolated, located around Rhino & Leopard area.

Skukuza was kept as an option since there are large number of rooms there and hence slightly more chances of getting room, plus its not that far from the area in Kruger where we were planning on doing safari drives.

Crocodile bridge was also a camp we had tried, but we didn't put in the list since it may not give the full experience of staying inside a forest since it was located next to road and entry gate.


Also, do note that there are multiple room types which are available in each of the camps. As if that's not confusing enough, SANS park has put really confusing naming for each room type.
Broadly speaking, there are camp sites, which is suitable if you are planning on camping or driving around in an RV. These have power sockets available with common toilets. They are the easiest stay options available and gets booked the last.

Then there are what is called as Rondavel, these are round African styled rooms. However, the category of Rondavel which will be available in larger number does not have attached toilets. These, like camp sites have common toilets, hence we were not keen on booking these. There were few camps with few Rondavel's which were having attached toilets, however by time we were searching, those were already booked. These will be the most cost effective option if available.

The third option is what we went for, these are regular cottages. Again, based on a camps, you can get 2 or more bedroom cottages. Since we were 4 adults and 1 kid, we were trying to get the 6 bed cottage which is there at Berg En Dal, however we were not able to find them free in the days of our travel. Again, count of 6 bed cottages are less and hence get booked easily.

Hence we went for 2 different cottages, these can accommodate 3 persons, have attached toilet, kitchen counter, fridge and barbeque area.

Do note that, even if you are staying in one camp, you can always drive to the other camp during the day time / safari time (06.00 AM to 06.00 PM).

During our stay, we went to all above mentioned camps, based on time we reach at those camps, we used the stop for breakfast / lunch / snacks and also to stock up on water and to refuel the vehicle.

It is just that, you need to be back in the camp that you have booked for the night by 06.00 PM.


Below is the booking link for Kruger stays -

Booking link


For all the stay options at Kruger, one can follow this link


Entrance to camp




Though all camps are located inside the forest, once you enter it, its like a township with all basic amenities available in most the camps.

Our camp had a small shop which sold fruits, basic grocery, souvenirs. A good restaurant and fuel bunk. Smaller camps may not have all these facilities, with the fuel bunk being the least common one.

However, unlike the forest camps in India, these rest areas are completely fenced off with proper road and markings.

Inside camp -




There is a Rhino museum inside the reception area




A periphery walking path is present in the camp, this as per reviews we saw is good for birding




However, we had to stop our walking mid way due to this guy



Though the elephant was outside the electrical fence, we decided not to approach further since the fence was very close to where elephant was standing.


Our room




Interior

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Safari drive plan and morning bush walk

In Kruger you can do self drive safaris. However, unlike the guided safaris one would see on wildlife video's, one cannot go in chase of animals away from the road. One has to stick to the road and also speed limits mentioned.

There is descent cell phone coverage inside Kruger, so you will be able to load maps and start navigation before you start safari each day. Enroute network may get patchy, hence its better to have offline maps in your phone.


Our itenary at Kruger was as follows -



For the third day, we had kept the plan empty with an idea to take up any route we wanted to do based on how it went for first two days.

Also, for the fourth day, we had booked morning bush walk. This was done through the SANS Park website, the one in which we made the room booking.

We were also planning on getting an evening safari which is conducted from rest camps. For our camp, the same was displayed in booking site for few days initially, however later it disappeared from the site.
We checked for tickets to that at reception and they mentioned that the same is sold out. However, we noticed one evening while returning to the camp that the safari bus was leaving and it was having half the seats empty.

Safari drive route

For a useable road map of Kruger, I was searched net for many days, however finally I was able to find the most useful one on TBHP in another thread.

Link to the post here (Splendid South Africa)

I took a screenshot of the section of map I was interested in and kept the printout for the entire trip. This map had the required details without being over detailed and confusing.

The map which we used for entire period at Kruger -




Day 1
We reached the camp late in evening only after drive from J,Berg and stopping enroute to stock up on grocery and supplies for the 3 days in Kruger. Hence we didn't step out anywhere after that.


Day 2
On morning of Day 2, we headed out of camp and drove on S110 to Matjulu water hole
Though the watering hole was fairly dry, there is a tank next to that, it looked like the area was frequented by lots of elephants. However, we spotted few Giraffes and birds enroute.

Past this, we took S110 to S120, then joined S118. This is supposed to be prime leopard territory due to tall trees next to river. In this section we spotted a black rhino, Kudu, Hyena, Wild dogs and a tusker.

Then we stopped at James water hole taking S114 till H2-2 taking left here and heading towards Afsaal picnic spot for breakfast.

In this section we did spot lot of elephants including a very large herd.

Past breakfast, we headed towards Lake Panic bird hide. Enroute, we stopped at Mathekenyane Hill view point for some 10 mins.

Lake Panic was the best birding site we visited during entire Kruger trip. Apart from birds, there were crocodiles, Hippos & turtles there.

After spending a while there, we headed to Skukuza rest camp for lunch. We reached there around 2PM, there are multiple restaurants in the camp, we headed to Kruger Station Restaurant there. While food was okay, the service was very slow and it took us around 2 hours to get out of the place.

This made our plan delayed by around an hour and we had to rush back to our camp.

We took S114 till H2-2 and then joined H2 and then S110. By now we knew we were getting late and won't be able to make it to our camp by 6.00 PM deadline.
As luck will have it, on H2, we come across a leopard walking majestically next to road. Since it was almost 6.00 PM by now, there were no vehicles on road. It would have made for a good photo shoot if time was on our side, however all we can think of was to continue straight to camp

By time we reached camp it was 6.15 PM and the camp gates were closed. However, they opened the gates without any questions.

Note to self: Tomorrow, need to plan an early return.

Route map for day 2-


Day 3:

Same as day2, we started through S110, skipping Matjulu. Then went through S118.
Here we had our first lion sighting. It was a group of 2 lioness along with 4 cubs on river bed.

Past that we spotted white rhinos, elephants and ground hornbills.
We continued on - S114 -S26- Mpondo Dam - S102.
In this section, S26 area was devoid of any much animal sightings. I would skip this if I was doing this trip again anytime. Infact, apart from around Mpondo dam, most of the area in this section didn't have any animals to be seen.

Past that we took - H5 - H4-2 - Lower Sabie camp for lunch. In this, the H4-2 had multiple sightings along river. With huge herds of elephants and lot many hippos visible. On the flip side, since Lower Sabie is one of the bigger camps and since its lunch time, there were lot of traffic on the road around each sighting.

Past lunch, we decided to head back via S28 with a stop at Ntandanyathi hide. The place was very dry, and had very less sightings there.

However, past this we encounter our first sighting of Cape Buffalo and Wildebeests. Even on the next day, roughly in this direction (around Crocodile bridge camp) is where we saw these two species.


A quick stop at Gasanftombi road for viewing near the bridge Link and we continued on S25 till we hit S110. Spotted lot of elephants and hippos around here along with a solitary lioness which was resting next to road. It looked like it was injured in an earlier encounter and was recouping from the same.

Just as we were nearing our camp, on S110. Some 5 kms short of camp gate, we notice a line of vehicles on road. This was because of a leopard which had killed an antelope and was resting on the tree with the antelope.
The tree was maybe around 50 meters from the road. This along with the fact that it was getting late in the evening, the pictures didnt come proper. We waited for around half hour here and then headed back to the camp.

Day 3 map




Day4

We were not having any prior route plans for this day. This was kept as a buffer day to explore any area which we felt was good and didn't get sufficient time earlier. So thought to take the route which we had maximum sightings till now, starting with checking out the leopard on the tree which we noticed the previous evening.

By time we reached there, the place was already crowded, leopard was still on the tree and a Hyena was eagerly waiting below that. After some 30 mins in that traffic jam, we head towards H3 and then to S118 and S119. We spotted the lioness + cub pride as previous day at the same location and two white Rhinos too in the vicinity.

Past that we stopped at Gardenia bird hide, this was the driest and most non productive bird hide amongst the 3 we visited while at Kruger.

We continued on S25 all the way to Crocodile bridge rest camp.

Enroute, we spotted a leopard with a kill. The half eaten carcass of antelope was up on the hill, with the leopard resting in shade and only half visible.

Also, we came across a large herd of Cape Buffalos. It was around 11 AM when we reached Crocodile bridge.

I was of the impression that there is a restaurant at this camp, however turns out that they have only a café and supermarket. Around 45 mins there and we start back.


We took S25 - S121 - S110 for the way back. At S110, the leopard which on the tree yesterday evening and today morning was just getting down and walking away in to the forest while we were arriving.

After having a late lunch at our camp, we decided to take a walk around periphery of the camp and after that, head to Matjulu watering hole for checking for any sightings before sunset.

Day 4 route




Not posting pics of animals in day wise pattern, will post all those in one go in later post.


Day5

At 6.00 AM we had pre-booked for bush walk. We arrived at camp reception, from there we were taken in safari vehicle to a starting point, some 8 kms out of the camp.

From there, we took a circular route of close to 5kms and taking around 1.5 hours with a stop enroute in the forest for having some snacks.

Overall it was a good experience, would recommend anyone visiting here to do this once. There were two guides along with the group (totally around 8 people) who were explaining about different trees and plants in the vicinity along animal behavior and pointers to identify animals based on their droppings and pug / foot marks.

We start from the camp



Walking in single file behind the armed guard



Flat terrain, helps you see over long distances




A long eaten and dried leopard kill



Later there was a fun game too where all of us had to pick antelope dropping from the ground, put in our mouth and spit it to maximum distance. Those who spit the max being the winner

We reached back to camp around 09.00 AM and by 10.00 checked out and headed back to Johannesburg.

[mpksuhas]

Animal pictures

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Bird pictures

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Kruger - Johannesburg

We had rented two cars for the Kruger trip. This was for a contingency when not all want to do a morning to evening safari for all days. In that case, the idea I may start early morning for safari and then others will join leisurely for breakfast / lunch.

However, eventually, at Kruger we did all safaris together for all days. Only the last day, past lunch the case was different.

Hence, as per earlier plan, we headed to airport to return one of the car since Johannesburg sightseeing we can complete in one car.

The return drive took around 5.5 hours with a 1 hour lunch break. We returned one rental car, squeezed in to another one and headed to our Airbnb.

Location

Since it was late evening, we didn't step out after reaching there.

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Johannesburg day 1

Our first stop for the day is Constitution hill.

This is an old prison, which was infamous for human rights violation. Of the many prisoners who were locked up here were Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela too. Though, both were locked up in different time frame.

A cell block which is named after these two famous prisoner's.















Not all of the structure of jail remains now




Details of racial segregation




Replica of how cell was when prison was functional




Solitary confinement cells

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Johannesburg day 1 -ctd..


Our second stop for the day was Apartheid museum.

This is a short Uber ride from the Constitution hill. This museum chronicles the events during apartheid era in South Africa and also about history of Johannesburg area in general.

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Johannesburg day 2

For today morning, we had booked a walking tour of Soweto area in Johannesburg. This is supposed to be an unsafe neighborhood, hence we decided to on this walking tour instead of doing the same on our own.

The tour was booked through Airbnb, details here.

The walking tour starts from Hector Peterson memorial.






Though this is a comparatively lower income locality, the roads and surroundings are clean and well kept.





In the same locality is the house where Nelson Mandela lived before he was jailed.

The house is a museum now.











Opposite to this place is an interesting looking Hard Rock Cafe




From there, we took a bus shuttle and head towards Soweto towers.



Around there, we walk through a section of town which houses a huge slum.



Past that we reach Soweto towers. These were thermal power plants earlier, however it was decommissioned after complaints from residents due to health issues.

Now the towers are bungee jumping location. You can notice the bungee cord hanging between the towers.



This whole walk takes around 3 hours and we are done by around 1.00 PM.